THE ACTION-PACKED AMENTALISTS BRING YOU THE FUCKING GEMS

I've been meaning to write this one for months, but John Eden's recent post finally gave me the impetus to knuckle-down and get it out of my system...

There's a type of music that's been really exciting me over the last year or so. Not so much a 'scene' in the regional sense (although I suppose it centers around the London area), more a general aim of totally jaw-dropping gabba/jungle kinetics that I, from my remote suburban hilltop viewpoint, like to call "Amentalism"(nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism, of course). I like to think that Squarepusher was the first Amentalist. When he burst on the scene in '96, his take on mashed-up breakbeat science, inspired by the original Junglist's like Remarc, seemed to buck the general trend towards 'smooth 'n rollin' in the Drum 'n' Bass scene of the time - a dancefloor-unfriendly riot of convoluted, fragmented breaks that, from the outset, seemed determined to rinse as many new possibilities from the 'Amen' break and it's ilk as possible. Then last year Luke Vibert released a series of five EPs for Rephlex under the same Amen Andrews, which got me going again on the Amental trip and, combined with Planet Mu's Remarc anthologies, got me really starting to want to hear that type of grainy, insane hyper-funk racket again. Whilst this will no doubt be old news for some, here's a selection of tracks for the curious consumer...

MP3: Shitmat - Tuff Babylon
From "Killababylonkuts" (Planet Mu, 2004)
Buy at Amazon, Warpmart or download from Bleep.

From Amentalism's first 'concept album', where every track utilizes the 'Babylon Boy' sample. Shitmat has an even more irreverent attitude to sampling than Vibert! A true kleptomaniac, he's quite happy to throw in bits of The Stranglers, Ace Of Base, Michael Jackson, Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" and the theme from "Rainbow". Maybe this might wind-up some of the 'purists', but I find it all very endearing. "Tuff Babylon" is the most Gabba-flavoured offering - an overstimulated headlong speedrush that'll have you chuckling in amazement, especially when 'Golden Brown' makes an appearance...

MP3: Kid 606 - Powerbook Fiend
From "Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You" (Ipecac, 2004)
Buy at Amazon

Although I sometimes think that Kid 606 is just a skilled copyist, hanging-on to the creative shirt-tales of Squarepusher, Aphex Twin et al, I must admit he's made some remarkable records over the last few years. Effortlessly moving through jungle, electro, hip-hop and IDM -often in the course of one track - San Franciscan Miguel Trost-Depedro is a jack-of-all-trades and master of most. Here he lays down one of his fiercest Gabba riddims, adding dynamic spurts of Amen-intoxication that'll almost certainly give you a cardiac if you even attempt to dance to it.

MP3: DJ Scud & Christoph Fringeli - Bodysnatcher
From "Mash The Place Up" (Ambush, 1999)
Buy at Amazon

DJ Scud's Ambush crew are purveyors of some of the most violent, aggressive and downright nasty shit I've ever had the pleasure of being assaulted by. "Bodysnatcher" is like the next stage on from 'panic-attack' Jungle - a dense, nightmarish world of blood-curdling screams, white noise riffs and head-staving artillery beats that should not be fucked with when under the influence of mind-altering drugs. These records should come with 'health hazard' stickers. The horror..the horror...

MP3: Soundmurderer & SK-1 - Fathom
From "Rewind Records" (Rephlex, 2003)
Buy at Amazon, Warpmart

Although they're probably the quintessential 'Ragga-jungle' act, "Fathom" is from another place entirely. It's a total fucking vortex of hemorrhaging Amen stutter-beats, foreboding atmospherics and ghostly 'Mentasm' stabs that gives me the shivers everytime. Apocalypse, wow!

NO BLOG IS AN ISLAND

You simply must read Woebot's latest post, where Matt casts a critical eye over the state of MP3 Blogs. I was much relieved not to get a good tongue-lashing from Mr. Ingram, who can smell bullshit at thirty paces. In fact, I even made it into his 'Top 11". Cheers, mate!

Matt says "I do believe the same cloying chuminess which many people say ruins "The Bloglom" hampers the mp3 blogs". Hmmm...I wonder about this myself. Sometimes I think I link too much to other blogs (like now fr'instance), but the fact is that I'm not only a blogger, but also a fan of blogs in general. Right now they're pretty much my #1 resource for musical/cultural stimulation. I put these links in for my own benefit sometimes, so that I'll be reminded of them in months (years?) to come. I like to think of Gutterbreakz as being just one small componant in a huge matrix of knowledge and enthusiasm. 'Chuminess' has always inflicted this particular axis of the Blogdom. I have this romantic notion in my head that most of the London bloggers like K-Punk and Heronbone hang-out together in bedsits and on park benches, discussing art, philosophy and Marvel Comics. I like the thought that maybe the West Country Blog scene could ultimately spill-out into the 'real' world too. A night-out supping pints and chewing the fat with Kek-W, Loki, Psychbloke and The Spoilt Victorian Children sounds like a fun alternative to sitting in front of this bloody PC every night!

BIOCHEMICAL ATTACK

Well, after months of waiting, a copy of Biochemical Dread's "False Kings of the Earth/Indiana Cuba 7" 12 inch arrived on my doorstep this week. "Who the fuck's that?" you ask. Richard H. Kirk, of course! I'm feeling a bit lazy tonight, so I'll just let the press release explain the rest. I'm very familiar with these tracks already, as they featured on last year's "Bush Doctrine" album, but hearing them again beautifully mastered on virgin vinyl really blew my head off.

As Pulsoid are a small label with their heart in the right place, I'm not gonna post up any of my own MP3's from this release. However, I am going to act as a portal to the places where you can legally hear some BCD stuff.

MP3: False Kings Of The Earth (clip)

One of the grooviest tracks that Kirk's done for a while now. Propelled by an irresistibly funky guitar lick, overlaid with snatches of shortwave interference, digi-dub sonorities, subliminal 'found' sound/speech...it's a classic Kirk recipe; an anthem for haunted dancehalls and death discos the world over.

MP3: Indiana Cuba 7 (clip)

A more uptempo piece that sounds like Kirk's been indulging in a spot of self-kleptomania (why not? - he's done it before). I'm sure I can detect a loop from the Cabs' classic "Taxi Music" here. This track has a similarly claustrophobic, relentless intensity, only slightly alleviated by some catchy synth riffs and a solid 4/4 kick drum undertow.

The "Bush Doctrine" CD came out virtually at the start of the Iraq invasion, and as such it's dense, violent, anti-Bush administration theme was as perfectly in tune with the times as the Cabs' "Red Mecca" was to the Brixton Riots in '81. Kirk's as relevant now as ever, it's just a shame that he's reduced to releasing his work on small labels when he should be getting the high-profile exposure he deserves. Here's a couple of track from the album:

MP3: Zanderix Part 1.

This is the opening track, a real killer onslaught of polyrhythmic intensity that utilises the same riddim as "Indiana Cuba 7" but with added mashed-up filter and glitch fx. Severe!

MP3: The Capitol Of Abyssinia

Check that post-Dancehall groove...this one features the sort of ethnic chanting samples that Kirk's been exploring for ages now. I was picking up a similar feel from some of those tracks on "Rephlex Grime Vol.1."

There's yet another fresh wave of R.H. Kirk-related releases just around the corner. Any suspicions you might have that Gutterbreakz is really just a Kirk tribute site in disguise will almost certainly be confirmed in the next few weeks....

MP3 sources: D-Pulse America, Cocosolidciti

WHAT'S THE FRENCH FOR "BEEP, WHIRRR, BLOOOOOP"?

Senses Working Overtime is not an XTC tribute blog, but does seem to be championing retro- Moog and Space Age Pop at the moment. Some fun links, including one where you can download Claude Denjean's "Moog!" LP in it's entirety. I've long had a weakness for these strange albums..there was a time when you could pick 'em up for pennies. Admittedly, many of them are totally worthless exploitative crap, offering promises of 'amazing electronic sounds' to the unwary consumer but actually containing poor renditions of pop/classical hits with awful, whining Moog noises filling in the lead melody. This one's pretty good though, in places. Beastie Boy Mike D. even included it in his Top 10 Moog Records in an old issue of Grand Royal magazine. Denjean's other Moog albums, "Open Circuit" and "Moods" are less successful though. One of these days I might compile my own personal MP3 selection of favourites from this genre, but don't hold your breath....

Another link to French Moog-pop offers downloads of Roger Roger's "Best Of..", which has it's moments. Roger was actually quite an interesting character, a contemporary of Jean Jacques Perrey who specialised in making Library LP's for such 'legendary' labels as Chappell, iM and Southern. Working from Ganaro Studios in Paris, Roger (along with Nino Nardini and Eddie Warner) was just as likely to create trippy experimental pieces as chirpy melodic nonsense. Whilst JJ Perrey always kept his muse on a jolly, light-hearted tip, Roger wasn't afraid to create some fearsomely dark, avant-garde shit - an endless conveyor belt of mad ideas which were, bizarrely, intended for use as background/jingles for TV, film and radio. I feel compelled to share a few favourites with you...

MP3: Roger Roger - Sounds Industrial #15 (1970)

I've never heard the original (and extremely rare) 'Sounds Industrial' album. But Luke Vibert was good enough to include this on his "Further Nuggets" compilation (Lo Recordings, 2002). Accurately described by Luke as "watery, futuristic electronic funk - like a '70s Drexciya", this track sounds astonishingly ahead of the game.

MP3's: Cecil Leuter Pop - Electronique #9 / Pop Electronique #12 (1969)

Leuter was Roger's unhinged experimental alter-ego. Both of these are from the "Pop Electronique" album (re-issued by Pulp Flavor Recordings in 2000). Side 1 shows it's age by using a live rhythm section bashing out the standard 'groovy' backing-tunes of the day, but side 2 is a real excursion into the unknown. '#9' is essentially a mini-symphony for electronically treated drum machine - a primitive premonition of '90s filter-techno. '#12' features some heavily equalised hi-hats that put me in mind of the metallic, processed textures of '70s dub, particularly King Tubby's sound. The bits where Roger suddenly flips the rhythm into reverse suggests hints of Jungle's beat-manipulating abstraction 25 years later.

MP3: Cecil Leuter - Electro Sounds #8 (1968)

This one comes from Barry 7's "Connectors" compilation (Low Recordings, 2001). A collaboration with Georges Teperino (aka Eddie Warner), that demonstrates Roger's application of electronics to dark ambient mood music. It anticipates Cluster's nebulous soundscapes from a few years later.

Couldn't leave this 'Gaelic Pioneers' theme without a quick mention of the great Pierre Henry. Although he was from the 'classical avant garde' quarter, there are strong parallels with Roger in terms of introducing European audiences to queer new electronic textures.

MP3: Pierre Henry - Rock Electronique (1963)

This is some heavy shit...the opening frantic oscillator pulses predict the headlong kick drum assault of hardcore Tekno, followed by Neubauten-like metal bashing percussion and violent bursts of vulgar synth-chatter - Rave music for '60's academia!

Kid Shirt relates his own personal experience of witnessing Robert Rental & The Normal live. Unmissable!!

ANOTHER MUSICAL 'NICE DAD' STORY...



This one involves my other son, who's ten months old. We went 'round my mate Mike's house today, for a sort of 'father & baby' afternoon. No bloody women - just men, baby boys, cups of tea, idle chit-chat and the occasional discreet fag in the back garden. Whilst fooling around on the toy-strewn living room carpet, me and the babe discovered one of those little toy keyboards with drum pads 'n shit. It had three different preset sounds: one was a church organ, another a sort of bell-like tone and the third was a synth sound that was exactly like the one that did the lead melody on Nitro Deluxe's '80's House track "Let's Get Brutal". With just a preset drum beat to accompany me, I simply had to perform an impromptu live rendition of this classic cut. Mike was diggin' it, but the babes were not so receptive - they wanted their fucking toy back now. I dunno...you try your best to give your kids a good education and they show absolutely no bloody gratitude!

ROBERT RENTAL :

In October 2002, whilst watching Echoboy performing live at 93 Feet East in London, I literally bumped into Mute Supremo Daniel Miller, as he was standing next to me in the audience. A small exchange ensued, with the conversation eventually focusing on Miller's one-time friend and collaborater, Robert Rental. Daniel informed me that Rental had died of lung cancer a couple of years earlier. I was so stunned by this information that I forgot to ask Daniel perhaps the most burning question I had concerning this most enigmatic figure, namely: why did he stop making music?

There's so little documented about Rental's brief career. A google search will throw up lots of brief mentions, the odd obituary...but little else. One such mention can be found at Brainwashed, which includes some clips of Rental's work which I've linked to individually in orange throughout this post - I'm sure they wont mind! I've loved this man's music for so long now, yet know virtually nothing about him. Without any interviews or decent biographical info to draw on, it's impossible to truly understand his motivations for creating music or indeed why, after just three years of recording/performing he suddenly went AWOL. His close association with Miller would surely have provided him a 'job for life' as a Mute recording artist, even if he had only been a marginally successful figure on the label's roster. Perhaps the answers might lie in an obituary that Miller wrote for Throbbing Gristle's "24 Hours" (but I never had the cash to buy it!) or maybe Simon Reynolds might've addressed the matter in his new book. If anyone out there knows the answers, please contact me...

What I do know about Rental is this: he was Scottish, but moved to London in the wake of Punk to form a shortlived band with his fellow countryman Thomas Leer; then an interest in Krautrock and experimental tape music quickly led to a move towards electronics. In 1978 a triad of pioneering solo DIY singles by Miller (T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette - as The Normal), Leer (My Private Plane/International) and Rental (Paralysis/ACC) arrived on the scene, with a common aim: self-recorded, self-financed, with a loose manifesto that Miller summed-up recently as "the idea that electronic music was the real punk rock, and that punk rock was really just pub rock, sped up". Musically, each found their own particular means of expressing this approach. In Rental's case this resulted in what is, for me, one of the most fascinating artifacts of the Post-Punk era....

Robert Rental - Paralysis/ACC (Regular Records 7 inch, 1978)

MP3's:Paralysis, ACC

Actually, this release has some links with Rock tradition like the hazy, messed-up, fumbling confusion of acid casualties Alexander Spence and Syd Barrett. But really, there was nothing else comparable to this in the singer-songwriter tradition. Rental sounds like he's been buried alive under a huge slab of compression and ectoplasmic synth-screech. Occasionally his fragile, wounded vocals attempt to rise up out of the melee..."can you feel a little heart beat?" he implores, before wringing his own voice through the sonic mangler. His taught, angular, treated guitar lines slice through the mix like hot knives...it's a real emotional explosion of nameless longing that eventually leads to a coda that sounds reminiscent of some of Suicide's early demos or Joe Meek entrenched in a black cloud of depression. The B-side 'ACC' is a more uptempo piece with chugging guitar riffs and a soaring Meek-like lead synth. I think this is probably one of my favourite singles ever.

Robert Rental & The Normal - Live At West Runton Pavilion 6/3/79 (Rough Trade, 1980)

MP3: Untitled (Track 2)

Rental teamed-up with Daniel Miller to perform live during the Spring of 1979. The only known document of this is a recording from a sleepy seaside town on the Norfolk coast, released on a one-sided LP by Rough Trade the following year. Musically, Rental appears to have deferred entirely to Miller's more purist approach - an uncompromising sound generated entirely using synthesisers. As a live vocalist he appears to be a very different animal: the soft, indistinct slur of his studio recordings replaced by a harsh, urgent, monotonous growl - seemingly galvanised into righteous anger when performing his art on the battlefront of the live stage (and let's not forget what an uncomfortable place that was for electronic groups at that time).

It's worth noting at this point that one of the crucial factors in triggering the late-70's rise of independent electronic groups was the growing availability of low-cost monophonic synthesisers. Whilst the established Rock groups of the era were using more expensive American synths from Moog, ARP and Oberheim, the post-punks were picking up cheaper alternatives from places like Japan. The Human League bought Roland gear. Daniel Miller started with a Korg. Rental went for a British synth called The Wasp, which at that time was available for an unbelievably cheap £199 on account of it's lightweight cost-cutting design and non-moving keyboard. The thin, buzzy sound that these instruments generated was in sharp contrast to the fat, warm tones of the Moog. Their clammy, alien(ating) textures helped define the New Wave from the establishment as perfectly as any confrontational polemic. Rental and Miller's combined Korg/Wasp onslaught still sounds pretty fucking intense now. There's an interesting interview with William Bennett here, where he briefly recounts his time on tour with Miller & Rental, with his first group Essential Logic. Apparently, Rental subsequently sold his Wasp to Bennett, who then used it as the basis for devising the sound of his next group, the quintessential '80s noise group Whitehouse.

Another luminary of the era who was impressed by Rental's Wasp was TG's Chris Carter, as he recounted in a retro-review for Sound On Sound magazine: "The first time I heard the Wasp was in 1978 while I was with Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records, and happened to hear some demos by Robert Rental and Thomas Leer. They were writing very individualistic 'electronic' songs using just voices, guitars and two Wasps. The Wasps supplied all the keyboard and percussion parts, and we were amazed at the sound they were producing with these, especially as they were using no drum machines (I think they may have used a Spider sequencer). We signed them to our label and released their first album, The Bridge. I was so impressed by what they had achieved that I went out and bought a Wasp of my own."

Thomas Leer & Robert Rental - The Bridge (Industrial Records, 1979)
re-issued by (and available to purchase from) Mute Records in 1992

MP3's:Day Breaks, Night Heals Attack Decay(clip) /Interferon(clip)

Over a two week period in the Summer of 1979, armed with an 8-track recorder on loan from Industrial Records, Leer and Rental developed their demos into one of the greatest home-recordings of the era. Like a lo-fi alternative to Bowie's "Low", "The Bridge" is an album very much of two halves. The first side being song-based, the other abstract and ambient, for reasons explained by Thomas Leer in the re-issue's sleeve notes: "Robert wanted songs and I wanted a pure ambient album. I thought back then that the idea of the song was dead and the future belonged to instrumental music. Voices could be used, but not in a structured way."

The MP3 clip of "Interferon" gives a hint of the eerie, twilight world of wraith-like drones and loops that Leer and Rental created for side 2. Leer explains further: "We were doing the same kind of things Eno started with his Discreet and Ambient musics, but we were trying to take it a stage further, away from his prettiness. We took his technique and applied a harder, nastier edge to it."

The 'song side' proved to be a fruitful collection of electronic pop possibilities. The more forthright Leer takes the lead vocal in most cases, as on killer opening track "Attack Decay", with Rental providing the scorching noise-guitar blasts. I've selected "Day Breaks, Night Heals" because it's the only track where Rental takes the lead, although much of it's appeal is in Leer's superb synth sequence.

Robert Rental: Double Heart/On Location (Mute 7 inch, 1980)

MP3's: On Location, Double Heart(clip)

At the time it must've seemed that Rental's first release on Mute Records, with it's higher production values, was the beginning of a whole new exciting chapter in his career. But it turned out to be the final act. Recorded at Blackwing Studios in August 1980, Daniel Miller - with in-house engineers Eric Radcliffe and John Fryer - seemed determined to groom his friend for the big league, enlisting the services of D.A.F.'s Robert Gorl to play live drums and adding a bright production sparkle lacking in the murky home recordings of the past. On "Double Heart", Rental's economical bass and synth lines are augmented by uplifting piano flourishes from Thomas Leer. Yet set against this comparatively lush backdrop Rental seems frozen in the oncoming headlights, his voice too soft and reserved to project the necessary charisma required for pop crossover. Yet his performance retains an understated charm and quiet determination. Perhaps the line "If there is anything that I could be/I would be close to you and we would be free" hints that Rental was already aspiring to personal goals beyond the confines of a 'pop' career.

"On Location" is a much more dramatic piece - stark, tense, urban blues - a Ballardian nightscape of 'corrosion cars' and 'orange glow street lamps'. On the sleeve Rental is like some nocturnal character from a Scorcese movie - clearly an illustration of this song's theme. Alone in the streets he confronts his own desires caught in a passing car window reflection - "foot falls, heads turn, eyes meet/synchronised faces explode simultaneously..." - leading to a blood-curdling scream of horror (or elation?).

Whilst other left-field artists like Frank Tovey, Boyd Rice and Nick Cave were able to thrive under the artistically-driven ethos of Mute, Robert Rental, for whatever reason, decided that his future lay elsewhere outside the music biz. These four documents are all that remain of his brief non-career. For these at least, we should be thankful. Rest In Peace...

MAY THE BLEEP BEE WITH YOU...

BZZZZZ!!

I love getting e-mails like this:

I stumbled over your Blog and, well, I think you are my doppleganger.
I too have a large collection of tapes (including that Detriot Techno tape), I
too include Scientist's The Bee as an all-time classic (although I'd have to go
for one of the remixes) and I too am obsessed with Breaks, Bass'n' Bleeps

This comes from an ex-pat Brit who now works as an R&D Programmer for Sony Computer Entertainment America. Once more the internet brings kindred spirits together, though they may be an ocean apart.

The Scientist was Phill Sebastiane. The groundbreaking breakbeat-orientated music he created (with large input from DJ Hype) for Kickin'Records set the tone for Rave's second wave. Hype's hip-hop instincts, combined with Phill's assured synth-programming, on tracks like "The Exorcist" and "Champion Sound" (as Kicksquad) were the template for the early-nineties Jungle/Darkside explosion. I remember being incredibly excited by it all, and those Scientist tracks will always have a special place in my heart. Phill later went on to work as Pure Science.

MP3: The Scientist - The Bee

Although the more famous "Exorcist" tune was helping to push the BPM's higher, I actually prefer The Bee's stealthy, mid-tempo vibe. Looking back, I can't imagine what user-value this tune would've had for the E-heads, other than freaking them out with those bee-swarm samples. It's spacious, vaguely ominous atmosphere seems at odds with the rest of the Kickin' output of the era - hardly a recipe for 'bliss-out'!

I couldn't seem to find a copy of "The Bee" on vinyl or CD in my collection (thought I had - but never mind), and a quick Soulseek search proved surprisingly fruitless. So I've encoded this one from my trusty old "Best Of Kickin' Records" tape, which feels quite appropriate in this instance - a celebration of me and Sony-man's love of the music and the format. The sound-quality is surprisingly good, mind!

One last thing - I've been mucking about with my FTP files, but I'm a bit of a moron so let me know if this MP3 link doesn't work for you. Ta!

VISION ON...

WARPVISION - THE VIDEOS 1989 - 2004

If you're looking for a definitive view of developments in video art over the last fifteen years, here's a good place to start.

Naturally, the work of Chris Cunningham dominates this collection, the earliest example being Autechre's "Second Bad Vilbel", from 1995. Chris was already pushing his fascination with robotics and 'distressed' visual effects here, but his real genius lies in his ability to lock into the rhythm so precisely. The promo for Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" still looks remarkable - Cunningham's hyperactive editing skills in perfect concord with Tom Jenkinson's skewed art-jungle classic.

But there's plenty of other quality directors on show here: Daniel Levi's bizarre Chinese schoolgirls misbehaving in the playground to the soundtrack of LFO's "Freak", Laurent Briet's magical music-box accompaniment to Aphex Twin's "Nannou", Barback's '60's kitsch-flavoured promo for Broadcast's "Papercuts", Lyn Fox's creepy insectoid vision for Chris Clark's "Gob Coitus"...but the one's that are initially fascinating me most are the early small-budget affairs. Martin Wallace and Jarvis Cocker's promo for Sweet Exorcist's "Testone" is a delightful period-piece. Probably put together with a fifty-quid budget, they equate "Testone"'s bleepy sonics with old skool Space Invaders computer games and a surreal revival of the old BBC testcard, where the little girl with the blackboard breaks out of her confinement to play with beach balls and a VCS-3 synthesiser.

The pre-computer graphics primitive video effects are thoroughly charming in my view, particularly apt as they accompany the music of Richard H. Kirk, who was himself something of a pioneer of DIY video art (note: Mute will be re-issuing Cabaret Voltaire's seminal "Doublevision" collection on DVD very shortly - more on that soon..).

MP3: Sweet Exorcist - Testthree

Less famous than it's older sibling and, to date, only ever available on vinyl, "Testthree" is the one where they strip the track down to it's rhythmic core, add an eerie, sustained warble and then douse the 'bleep riff' in some tasteful echo.

Warpvision also includes a bonus audio CD - "Watch and Repeat Play", where Buddy Peace and Zilla take us on an an hour-long trip through the Warp back-catalogue, artfully editing loops and fragments together to create an hallucinogenic alternate reality. I'm gonna be a bit cheeky here and post-up a short section, for 'evaluation purposes only'. This is where my favourite piano interlude from Aphex Twin's "Drukqs" gets beefed-up with some phat breakbeat action. Check it!

MP3: Warp Mix - Section 9

Right, now go and buy the bloody thing!

Analogue whispers...

E-mail from A.O...

RDJ has bought a ton of stuff this year from people on the Analogue Heaven mailing list. My mate sold him some Korg MS boxes. Hopefully he's done with software 'bullshit' and is going to make some more good records. Fingers crossed!

RECOGNISE 5 - The aftermath...

Easily the most successful so far, possibly thanks to a concerted fly-posting campaign. It's been really pleasurable watching this little club gradually grow and develop. Seeing DJ's Dave B., Will and Dave T. go from complete novices to ever increasing levels of confidence and inspiration. By the time the management turned off the juice, the place was really fucking buzzing. I thought there was gonna be a riot. Special mention for young Will (he of Bronze Age Fox) for some extremely tasty mid-80's action. We had Herbie Hancock's "Rockitt", Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" and, best of all, Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F." Hearing this track again blasting through a P.A. was nothing short of a revelation. Goddam, 1985 was a bloody terrific year for pop! In honour of the occasion, I present it here for your listening pleasure. Sure, you know the song, but when was the last time you played it? Sounds fresh as a daisy to me. If ra-ra skirts and white stilletto's can come back in fashion (which they have), then so can this!

MP3: Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F

Oh, and great to finally meet another blogger in the flesh. I got to hang out with Spoilt Victorian Child Rowche Rumble for a while, and was able to personally congratulate him on that fucking awesome MP3 compilation. Not sure if Rowche shared my enthusiasm for Axel F. though....

LFO UPDATE

I was kinda hoping that a few people might run with my LFO singles comp. idea, but it's particularly pleasing that the Patron Saint Of Rave Culture, Mr. Simon Reynolds, has given the project his blessing. This has inspired me to get over my bandwidth paranoia and post up the remaining three tracks that aren't available legally.

However, I would never suggest that this compilation was better than the actual album. As Simon wrote himself in Energy Flash, "Frequencies" was "not just the definitive bleep-and-bass record, but one of the dozen or so truly great albums the electronic dance genre has yet produced". But hearing these b-sides and remixes together does give a refreshing new perspective on the magical soundworld that Messrs. Bell & Varley concocted all those years ago. Incidentally, my suggested running-order is purely chronological. If anyone comes up with a more musically meaningful arrangement of tracks, I'd love to hear about it.

I should add a disclaimer that, although I've done the best I can with my limited home technology to reproduce these tracks in MP3 format, to fully appreciate the full frequency range of some of these tunes, particularly the sub-bass pressure of "LFO (remix)", you really do need the original vinyl 12 inchers (and a half-decent Hi-fi system). As Warp's Steve Beckett explained to Simon about the vinyl mastering process: "A lot of it was in the cut. You've got filters on your cutting heads. Basically, it was about taking off all the filters and all the compression, and just pushing the levels up as far as you could. The engineer, this guy Kevin, would be sitting there watching the temperature gauge go right up, 'cos your cutting heads get really hot if you haven't got the filters on. He'd be sweating, saying 'you're gonna fuckin' destroy me, ya bastards', 'cos if the heads blew he'd get sacked. But he loved it really."

MP3: QUIJARD

Not generally known for using House-y piano-vamps, LFO's take on ivory-tinkling is a bewitching little number that circumnavigates the euphoric riffs of Happy Hardcore for a more delicate, wistful vibe - all held together by a stonking 909 kick drum, of course...

MP3: NEW AGE

Again, hardly typical of LFO's sound, although thankfully not anything to do with New Age music! Nice, chunky Hip Hop-tempo beats overlaid with horror-flik string stabs...like Belgian hardcore at the wrong speed.

MP3: WE ARE BACK (remix #2)

How many versions of this track do you need?! Personally, I'll take whatever's going, mate. Admittedly, this mix doesn't add much to the agenda, but it's more austere, reflective aura does encourage one to focus attention on those deliteful metallic percussion sounds.

One final point, following Simon's proposed 'Autere Series'. I've never managed to shake-off that rockist fixation with the artist. Probably the main reason why my blog tends to go around in myopic circles of oft-repeated obsession ("will the howling never end?!") is because I tend to know an awful lot about a relatively small handful of artists but don't really have a handle on the wider cultural implications. Perhaps it's because I never fully engaged with Rave Culture at it's source - on the dancefloor. Never an E'd-up cog in the euphoric wheel of pleasure, always a fascinated bystander, more concerned with the new Aphex Twin direction when I should've been focusing on the faceless white labels which were the true indicators of where everything was heading. I'm fully aware of my shortcoming and I reckon that anyone who checks in here regularly knows them too, but maybe that's part of my appeal - you always know what you're gonna get over at Gutterbreakz. It's a comfy, reassuring place. Maybe I should try and change that...

THE 2000 A.D. ART OF CHRIS CUNNINGHAM



Like our own Kek-W, director Chris Cunningham did time as an employee of Tharg, under the alias Chris Halls. His work is very similar to that of Simon Bisley, I think. It kinda rocks, like the new Warp DVD.





Mean Machine, 1992



Check out some of Chris' cover art over at 2000 A.D. Online...

Scott Woods takes the helm over at Stypod, and hits us with some serious electro-R'n'B from the class of '88. Lush! Grab 'em now while stocks last. Particularly pleased to see Scott giving props to Nu Shooz. Although I'd not heard this particular track before, their smash hit "I Can't Wait" has been a firm favourite of mine for some years. Didn't make much impact on me at the time, but then a few years ago I had a dream and this song was the soundtrack. Y'know how great music sounds in your dreams? Well, in this dream "I Can't Wait" sounded like the most perfect piece of pop in the history of mankind. The spell was cast and I've had a minor obsession with it ever since. Found a second-hand 12 inch in a charity shop a little while later...christ, it just fuckin' sends me, especially her voice, which is a bit soulful but doesn't try too hard...a sort of vacant, directionless yearning...

...I wanna have sex with that voice!

Just a quick mention for Psychbloke, who just happens to be a mate of Loki's (wish he was my mate too, boo hoo!). He takes lot's of photos of things that catch his eye in central Bristol, but also goes off on occasional journies into the warm, milky glow of childood memory, like this brilliant Star Wars post. Even though my general feelings of shared experience are probably inevitable due to the fact that I'm of the same age and from the same city and share an alarming amount of similar non-musical interests, I reckon this is so powerful it would make even the great K-punk shudder in empathic ecstacy, assuming he bought bubblegum cards (didn't we all?!- and I hope Mark spotted that Sapphire & Steel post a while back), god...I can fucking taste those pink gum strips now...time for some deep reverie shit...

THE APHEX EFFECT

Another cool MP3 blog: Radio Babylon. Not least 'cos he calls himself 'Blue Calx' or the fact that he's been bigging-up Luke Vibert recently. He's also brought to my attention the imminent release of a new Aphex Twin 12 inch called Analord 10 (I really should check in at Rephlex more regularly!). My own reactions to this lush vinyl package are pretty much exactly the same as Calx's, so over to him:

The good news about this speaks for itself. The bad news, it's only available as 180g Audiophile vinyl, which means that the sound quality should be fantastic, but it will probably also be expensive. And for only two tracks too. It's also packaged in a binder which will also hold future editions of the Analord series. As nice as the idea sounds, it'd be nice to get them all put together on one CD, wouldn't it? The unfortunate thing about Aphex Twin is that he's gotten quite good at making money lately but he's also talented enough to get away with it. So depending on how much he's looking for for this result (the line "Price: t.b.a." seems like a bad sign to me), I'll probably end up springing for it anyway. Of course there's also a bit of debate over the title "Analord." Despite the fact that it's also the name of a Wagon Christ track, is it a reference to the fact that these tracks may be refined versions of the back catalogue of his old analog work? Or is it... well I'll leave it your imagination. Considering this is Aphex Twin, I'm going to guess that it's a little of both.

Indeed! I'd also add that it's nice to see that James is now free to use his beautiful Aphex logo wherever he darned well pleases since freeing himself from his Warp contract. You all know by now how much I love Warp (DVD is in the post, btw!), but I got the impression some time ago that James wasn't happy there, so it's best that he does his own thing now. "Analord' does indeed give out a coy suggestion of 'analogue', which I find intriguing. But I don't believe for one minute that James has reverted back to his roots in soldering irons and voltage control. Once you've made the move to software, there's really no going back. But perhaps he's using his Powerbook to emulate the sound of his analogue recordings? I hope so!

I cherish the sound of those early Aphex releases. He really was a total breath of fresh air when he first went overground in '92. Like nothing else around. And such an advanced mentality towards sound, that had Simon Reynolds making John Cage comparisons at every opportunity. The fact that his equipment seemed to consist of all this junky homemade or modified gear was equally mindblowing. One of the greatest gigs I ever attended was this one:

Of course I enjoyed the spectacle of Orbital, who were just starting to hit their stride as a shithot live experience. Yet when James came on stage, it was like some distopian Steptoe & Son-meets Blade Runner-type scene. All you could see from the audience was the crown of his head, just poking out from the top of an unfathomable pile of circuit boards, ancient TV monitors, keyboards that looked like they'd been ripped open and their guts splayed out. To us it looked like a heap of scrap, but it had grown organically over many years and James no doubt knew exactly where every crocodile clip was supposed to be placed. Like some H.R. Geiger biomechanical nightmare, James seemed fused within all this electronic garbage - truly, man and machines in perfect symbiosis.

And then there was the sound of those crazy gadgets. Percussion sounds beyond anything yet experienced by mankind. And the reverb-laden patina of otherness that pervaded his analogue recordings. No matter how intricate his laptop programming becomes, that sense of environment seems to have been lost in his digital work.

MP3: AFX 6

Here's an example of that early Aphex sound, recorded for a BBC radio session transmitted on 13th March 1993. I've deliberately left in John Peel's dulcet chatter. Totally fucking martian, mate...

KICKIN' AGAINST THE PICK-UPS

Jez won't stop grinning. Crash! Another power-chord. Bam! LFO swing their axes like Thor swinging a sausage. Whee! Chang! Twang! With one power chord LFO save rock 'n' roll. From itself.

Encouraged by NME's Ian McCann and photographer Steve Double, Techno's Bright New Hope LFO symbolically slaughter a bunch of guitars in their quest to rid the world of Rock's tired, outdated stranglehold.

Jez Varley: "We thought we'd do it for a laugh. It'll probably wind up the sort of indie band that hates dance, though."

Mark Bell: "It must be hard to make music with guitars. Or hard to do something new. A guitar can only make a few noises really. There's the acoustic sound, the electric sound, the distorted fuzzy sound and everything else is just variations. And all these sounds have been used in the last 20 or 30 years. How do you get a new sound out of a guitar? On the other hand a synth has got hundreds of sounds on it, and there are hundreds of synths that all sound different from each other. If people say it must be easy to do what we do, well, it is in that it's easy to get a new sound out of a keyboard and it's hard to get a new sound out of a guitar."

Axes to grind: Jez Varley (left) and Mark Bell indulge in some serious Rock-Deconstructivism

Varley and Bell were teenage ravers at clubs where the DJ's were members of Nightmares on Wax, the cult Leeds House-hip-hop production team. They gave Nightmares on Wax a demo of a House track they did on a tiny Casio SK-1 keyboard and candle-powered drum machine. The track got played at the club. The crowd loved it, and among the crowd were the guys that own Warp Records. Within a month 'LFO' by LFO was out on Warp.

Now, two singles and an album ('Frequencies') later, LFO are among the electronic elite.

Ask them if they're ever tempted by anything that isn't electronic and the names they come up with are Brian Eno and Pink Floyd. "One of my friends," muses Mark, "likes Metallica, Slayer and Megadeath, and he likes Techno. It does make you wonder..."

Wonder what? Wonder if Techno is the new Metal rather than the new punk? Sling a few simple Metal riffs together using a computer and you've got a House record? Nah, it doesn't seem possible. But LFO have bigger things to worry about, like the 'new' 'live' TOTP, which, they reckon, has been engineered to make dance music look crap. And that's not all.

"It's not just that", says Mark. "Think about the way the big record companies are trying to do away with vinyl. They know full well that dance music is just 12" singles. It's an attack on dance music because they know it's not a CD market. And an attack on dance music is anti-independent labels, because all those dance hits are on little labels. The big labels want everything their way and dance music is a threat. They'd rather it wasn't around."

Alright!! LFO are spearheading a joint assault on the Rock and Corporate establishments (which, let's face it, are pretty much entwined anyway). Go get 'em lads - your generation needs you!

Burn, Babylon, burn!

But wait a minute....this all happened over a decade ago, in January 1992. So what the fuck happened?! How did we allow the trad-rock bollox of Oasis, Travis and The (wretched) Darkness to flourish once more? Why is Jack White an international superstar when the real voice of Detroit youth - Jimmy Edgar - still languishes in relative obscurity? Why is it that the charts - once under siege from an unstoppable deluge of smash'n' grab independent dance labels - are once again dominated by the major labels and their foul 'pop idols'? Why are LFO's subsequent sporadic releases only listened to by a smallish community of die-hards, when their first three singles all invaded the charts?

Everyone's a winner, baby: the LFO entry in the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles

Amazingly, from just three singles/EPs and their remix offshoots, it's possible to compile a whole new album's worth of material from that classic era. Below is my suggested tracklist and running-order which you can use to create your own Singles/B-sides 90-92 CD-R. As this is intended as a companion to Frequencies, I have left out Mentok 1 and the standard mix of We Are Back as they are identical to the album versions. Tracks highlighted pink are available to download from Bleep. Disgracefully, none of the other, mainly vinyl-only, tracks are on-catalogue at all. Those in yellow are available to download courtesy of Gutterbreakz. I would've put them all up, but I'm conscious of bandwidth restrictions. However, the remaining tracks are all in my shared folder on Soulseek. Please take them, burn the CD-R, then pass copies to your ten-year-old nephew and so forth. There's still time to save The Kids before the system sucks out their brains forever! It's a question of Cultural Survival!


1. LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix)

2. TRACK 4

3. PROBE

4. LFO (Remix)

5. QUIJARD

6. WE ARE BACK (Remix #1)

7. NURTURE
(different from the album version)

8. PUSH

9. WE ARE BACK (Remix #2)
(erroneously titled 'Push')

10. NEW AGE

11. SQUEAKY

12. TAN TA RA (Moby Remix)

13. MASHED POTATO

14. WHAT IS HOUSE (Remix)

15. SYNDROME

Total playing time: 68:22

Oh fuck. After yet another e-mail wondering what the hell happened to my Martin Rushent revelations, I've decided to give in and reveal what little I know. I really wanted to do something special with this one, and there was so much info I wanted to glean from Martin but, despite his assertions that he would answer my questions when he had the time, no further information has been forthcoming, and I really don't want to keep hassling him like some sad wanker. So here's what he's given me so far, in his own words...

A very dear friend of mine - Andrew Lauder - head of A&Rr of UA Records and then Radar records - played me an album by Grandmaster Flash.

I thought this record was amazing - GMF was doin it by scratchin' records and I thought i could do something similar using studio fx and splicin tape.

The first remix I did this way was Homosapien remix with Pete Shelly from The Buzzcocks.

I did the remixes for Love & Dancing at the same time as I mixed the Dare versions.

In fact the b sides of some of the singles were the remixes of the a sides.

By the time Dare was dun - we had almost an album's worth of remixes - so I suggested I do a couple more and put it out as Love and Dancing - which we did.

After Dare had been successful in the USA I went over to find L&D had revolutionised the US dance scene !!

Whilst on tour with the Buzzcocks I stumbled over the Linn Drum (LM-1)in development and ordered one.

So in summation:

influences from USA

Grandmaster Flash
the Linndrum machine

there were a few other unfluences - reggae dub
Motown
James Brown
etc

There u have got it

So essentially Martin is saying that the early '80s US dance scene was influenced by him, not the other way around. I must admit I was fascinated by the thought that all those st-st-stuttery edits, which would become so predominate in club remixes, originated from Martin's desire to emulate Flash's turntable technique. It's also important to remember that, although remix albums can often smack of 'cash-in' these days (even Go West were doing it by '85), there wasn't really anything like it when L&D first hit the racks. The nearest comparisons would be with Jamaican dub albums, whose influence Martin acknowledges. Soft Cell's "Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing" came shortly afterwards (more on that here). L&D's success would've been far from assured at the time, especially as they decided to release it under the 'League Unlimited' moniker. It was a pioneering concept, and potentially risky as there were no real precedents with which to gauge audience reaction. The other vital point in Martin's comments is that, rather than being cobbled together as an afterthought, most of the L&D mixes were recorded during the Dare sessions - the result of Martin's feverishly inspired tinkering after the rest of the League had gone home for the night. It was a labour of Love. And Dancing.

I should also mention that Martin is writing his autobiography, and also remixing 'Dare' once again "using all the latest computer stuff". The League don't seem too sure whether Martin is up to the job, but bare in mind that Martin has been in talks with Autechre's Skam label about releasing a solo album. If the Skam people are taking him seriously, so should we!

That's it, folks - hope you're not too disappointed after such a long wait...

THEY JUST WANNA INNOVATE...

Since my brief review of their 'Burnerism' mini-album back in June, I've not seen any other support for the mighty Team Shadetek out there in blogworld, other than a rather muted response over at Telephone Thing in July (no doubt you'll let me know if I missed something). 'Burnerism' just seems to get better and better everytime I listen to it. The Autechre comparisons are legitimate, but whilst Messrs. Booth & Brown come across like techno-druids meditating on their silicon-encrusted mountain top, Shadetek are pure street. Hard, urban boombox music fragmented through the lens of Powerbook glitch-fuckery. Wired, (in)tense, edgy shit that grooves like nothing else I'm hearing right now. Like Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica", this music moves in time to it's own peculiar inner-riddim, requiring several listens before you're fully attuned to Shadetek's beat.

You can listen to previews of all the tracks on Burnerism here.

Those lovely people at at The Milk Factory have a cool review/bio here and even cooler interview here.

For my part, here's an MP3 of Innovate, the B-side of their first self-financed single, which is out of print. This is much earthier and lo-fi than the Burnerism material; quite similar to Jimmy Edgar's approach - it's like oldskool '80s Hip Hop, back when it was raw, strange and bludgeoningly repetitious. I love the way they pluck a horn blast from it's comfy little home in the past, attach live wires to it's festering testicles and make it jerk Frankenstein-like in a new 'dance macabre'. That's what Hip Hop's all about, as far as I'm concerned.

Phew, I'm back, having just got my PC back from the workshop for some minor but well-overdue repairs. Off-line for over 72 hours! The cold turkey was harsh.

Anyway, normal service will be resumed shortly, although I will probably spend the rest of the evening just catching up on all the cool stuff that's been happening in bloggyland in my absence.

Oh and by the way, my last post was so full of self-righteous proclamations that I forgot to say a big 'thankyou' to Simon at Spoilt Victorian Child for some invaluable advice and encouragement that gave me the impetus to get into the MP3 game. As one of the more vocal supporters of Download Culture, it was beginning to worry me that I wasn't taking this blog to that level (but that doesn't mean that I consider MP3 Blogs to be superior to non-MP3 blogs - far from it - it's just something that I need to do in the quest for personal advancement).

Thanks for all the kind words, people. It means a lot....